


To His Heart

by sidewinder



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: M/M, Romance, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-03 07:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6602491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidewinder/pseuds/sidewinder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sonny invites Rafael over for dinner. Rafael isn't sure why he's said yes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To His Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [csichick_2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/csichick_2/gifts).



Rafael stood outside the apartment door, hesitant to the last moment over whether accepting this invitation had been a good idea. Of course he’d already been buzzed up from downstairs by his host, so turning tail now would require some seriously awkward explanations come the next day. So he shook off his reticence as best as possible, exhaled to compose himself, and knocked lightly to announce his presence.

He was answered in short order by what sounded like a herd of gazelles bounding toward the door. However it was, in fact, only one man who came to answer it. “Hey, Counselor! Thanks for coming over, come on in.”

“Thank you for the invitation. And please, I’m your dinner guest so it’s Rafael, unless you expect me to call you ‘Detective’ all night.”

Sonny smiled, looking slightly flustered (and rather ridiculous in his “Boss of the Sauce” apron), but then moved back to let Rafael step inside. “I brought wine,” Rafael said, holding up his insulated tote bag. “I wasn’t sure if red or white would be more appropriate, so...one of each?”

“Thanks, great! Here, why don’t you...” Sonny spun around like a top, seemingly uncertain which direction to head, “...you want to open one? Both? The lasagna will be another twenty minutes or so, but I’ve got some antipasti ready to eat first.”

“Then let’s open both and enjoy a glass of the white while the red has time to breathe.”

“I’ll get a corkscrew.”

Rafael took a look around the modest yet exceptionally tidy apartment, which wasn’t exactly what he’d expected of Carisi, but then again, he wasn’t sure what he _would_ have expected. It wasn’t something he’d really wondered deeply about before, to be honest. On the walls were numerous photographs of people Rafael assumed were family members, young and old, along with an obligatory image of the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus, as you’d expect to find in any good Catholic household. A large bookshelf was filled with familiar legal volumes, with several titles scattered upon the desk near one small window looking to the quiet neighborhood street outside.

Sonny had invited him over for a home-cooked meal in thanks for these past months of allowing him to trail along in the courtroom, while he awaited the results from the bar exam. And Rafael had truthfully been too surprised to say anything but “all right, fine, whatever” at the time, though he had spent the week since accepting the invitation wondering precisely _why_ and if he should somehow try to get out of it.

But now here he was, standing in Sonny’s kitchen with a corkscrew in hand and having to admit, “Something smells amazing. I assume it's the promised lasagna?”

“Hopefully it’ll taste as good as it smells. It’s my grandmother’s recipe. I’ve spent a lot of Sundays trying to make just like she always did.”

“That’s how you choose to spend you’re time off, cooking?”

“I’m Italian, it’s what we do. Eat, drink...and, well, whatever comes after that.”

“Indeed.” Rafael opened the first bottle and poured a hefty glassful for himself and his host. He had a feeling he could use it. “Here’s to...eating and drinking?”

*

Dinner was not as awkward as Rafael had feared it could be. Cooking and fussing over food, Sonny was much more relaxed and in his element than he seemed in the courtroom or at the precinct. Not that the detective hadn’t made significant strides in his work and people skills over the past couple of years that Rafael had known him. But it was clear that this was something he was especially passionate about and it showed in the details of everything he had prepared, from the marinated vegetable antipasti to the rich and hearty meat lasagna.

“Everything has been excellent, Sonny,” Rafael had to complement him. “I may not know your grandmother but I have to imagine you’ve done her proud.”

The detective beamed at Rafael’s compliment. “I’m glad you like it. Wish she was still alive, y’know, and I could bring her some tomorrow to show her how well she taught me.”

“I do know,” Rafael said seriously, sorrowfully thinking of his own _abuelita_ and how much he missed so many things about her...so many things he’d wished he’d taken the time to learn _from_ her the way Sonny had embraced his grandmother’s cooking. He took a sip of his wine—they’d moved on from the white to the red by now—and realized that Sonny was rattling on now about all the preparation that went in to his grandmother’s lasagna, from the freshly-made pasta to the béchamel and meat sauces.

“—that’s what she’d always tell me. ‘Don’t just use the chopped pork and veal from the butcher, Dominick. You’ve got to mince it finer than that, and by hand.’ That’s what she’d usually put me on, if I was helping her, once I was big enough that she’d trust me with her _mezzaluna_. And her secret ingredient in the meat sauce?”

“Yes?”

“Rabbit liver.”

“Rabbit liver?”

Sonny nodded enthusiastically. “Her butcher would always save them for her when he cleaned whole rabbits for other customers. Do you know how hard it is to find rabbit liver these days? Not many Italian grandmothers out there still cooking like that in the city like the old days, like my nonna. I had to call all over the place to find a market that would do the same today.”

“You didn’t have to go through all of that trouble just for me.”

“It’s okay. A good use of my detective skills, right? And hey, who said it was just for you? I’m having another slice.”

Sonny dove at the pan with an enthusiasm and serving generosity that made Rafael wonder how the man wasn’t three hundred pounds. “Well, perhaps you can pass on these secrets and skills in the kitchen to another some day. Like...Amanda, perhaps?”

“Rollins? Yeah, she could _definitely_ use some help in the kitchen, but it’ll be a long time before I try to teach her anything more than how to make a basic tomato sauce that doesn’t come from a jar.”

“Seems to me she’d be interested in spending more time together with you. And more than just in the kitchen,” Rafael added, having observed all too easily the way she had been making eyes at Sonny for some time.

“What? Oh. Yeah, well...that’s what’s kind of tricky right now.”

“Oh?”

Sonny shrugged in between bites of his second helping. “Rollins, she...she’s nice and all, at least now that she’s not constantly pickin’ on me. But it’s...I like her, but I don’t _like_ her. Not that way. She’s like...she’s a little too much like my sisters, jeez.” Sonny made a face.

“I see.”

“Yeah, that and...well, she’s not really my type.”

“I didn’t realize you had a type.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“I suppose. But that doesn’t always translate into who we actually end up with.” _If we ever find anyone at all. Or if the person we thought might be the one ends up finding someone else first._ Rafael thought, briefly, of Olivia Benson, but pushed those thoughts aside quickly before they turned sour and left him feeling bitter again.  _  
_

“Ain’t that the truth. Like, y’know who I was talkin’ to the other day at the D.A.’s office? John Munch.”

“I’m surprised if you started talking to John that you ever escaped.”

Sonny grinned. “Yeah, but he’s cool. I wish I’d had the chance to work with him at SVU, he’s always got books for me to read and theories to talk about, but I've been too busy studying for the bar to really get into them lately. Anyway, he was tellin’ me how most of his life, he kept goin’ after the same type of woman, even married _four_ of them and each time it was a disaster. And then he met someone who was completely different from whom he ever thought he wanted, and that person ended up being exactly who he needed.”

“You mean Detective Tutuola?” The two former partners on the job were certainly one of the oddest couples to come out of the 16th. Odder even than Benson and Tu—

Oh, there went those thoughts Rafael didn't want to be thinking about again.

“Yeah. Never would have put those two together, right? Least I never would have, even though I—” Sonny stopped himself, and looked down to fuss with the food on his plate.

“Even though you what?” Rafael pressed.

“Well, I’m not a prude, I mean. Or anti-gay, I’m definitely not _that_. I just...sometimes don’t read people properly. Or know if I’m getting their signals right. It can be tricky these days, y’know? Everyone’s more open and accepting of others’ sexualities, but...that doesn’t make dealing with rejection any easier if you make an assumption or ask and find out you're wrong.”

“But if you never ask, you’ll never know.”

“That’s true, too. And funny enough someone else told me the same thing, recently, so maybe I should take that as a sign. Rafael?”

“Yes, Sonny?”

There was a heavy pause in the air, as Sonny got up from the dining room table and walked over to where Rafael sat. He leaned over more closely, a question and a spark in his bright blue eyes that made Rafael's breath hitch in his throat. “Room for dessert?” Sonny asked, a hint of a smile lighting his face as Rafael met his gaze, unblinking.

Rafael smiled back at him. “I thought you’d never ask.”

*

Special Investigator John Munch had his head down in a file as he headed to his office at the D.A.’s, fretting over the case which had come across his desk this morning. An old investigation, one he had long since thought dead and forgotten about until recent new evidence had brought it to his attention.  As such, he nearly collided head (and file) first with Detective Carisi, who he only then realized had been calling his name and coming straight toward him.

“Detective Carisi, pardon my distraction.”

“No, excuse me, John. I’ve got my head in the clouds today, too. For my own reasons.”

“Oh?”

Sonny leaned in closer, his eyes shining with barely contained delight. “I just wanted to tell you that you were right.”

“I am more often than not, but what specifically was I right about this time?”

“That I should take a chance and not be afraid of someone saying no. Because that’s better off than never knowing if they would have said yes.”

“And I take it you got the answer you were hoping for?”

Sonny practically beamed in response. “Let’s just say my nonna was right, too: the way to a man’s heart really is through his stomach—as long as you don't give him food poisoning.”

John laughed and gave the young detective a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. “And _that’s_ why I never cook for Fin.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover Art ] To His Heart by sidewinder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10714221) by [justaddgigi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justaddgigi/pseuds/justaddgigi)




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